A disconnect exists between the goals of Chief Data Officers (CDOs) within financial services organisations and their legal departments when it comes to repurposing data for secondary use, according to new research.

Based on the views of over 400 CDOs from multinational companies attending FIMA Europe 2019 (Europe's leading financial data management event) a new survey revealed that 90% of CDOs are currently repurposing data or plan to in the next year.

However, over half (53%) of the CDOs in attendance also revealed that within the last six months they have been told by their legal departments that their organisation cannot use the data in the ways that they want to.

The research, which was conducted by Anonos®, shines a light on the challenges financial services organisations face from regulations including the GDPR and PSD2. In many cases, companies can no longer rely on the processing grounds of anonymisation, consent and contract when they want to repurpose customer data for big data analytics, machine learning and AI.

Gary LaFever, CEO and General Counsel at Anonos, said: "In many ways, the role of Chief Data Officers is changing from policing and controlling data usage to enabling new business avenues driven by data and analytics. However, as this research highlights, CDOs are facing a struggle with their legal department when it comes to generating revenues from the trove of data their organisation possesses."

"Possession of data doesn't give companies the right to process data, and most companies are now realising that they cannot repurpose data in the ways that they want to maximise value. This puts them in a difficult position: to gain a competitive edge, or even to compete in their industry at all, repurposing of data is not only important, but in many cases necessary."

Gary added: "Traditional data protection methods such as anonymisation leave personal data open to re-identification, which exposes you to GDPR non-compliance risks. "However, in contrast, the GDPR highlights pseudonymisation as a technological solution in more than a dozen places, linking it to express statutory benefits and as a recommended safeguard for enabling greater privacy-respectful use of data in today's 'big data' world."

The survey also revealed that 83% of CDOs believe opportunities for leveraging customer data for innovation can be significantly increased through utilising technical controls for privacy rights management within their organisations.